What’s It About
After Clark, a therapist’s patient, disappears into a dimension beyond reality, she, Dr. Mary Kline, must venture into the unknown to save him.
MOVIESinMO REVIEW
A room that looks almost right can still be visually off, so it’s not wrong that you’d run away, because it still makes your skin crawl. That’s exactly the feeling Kane Parsons creates in Backrooms, his first feature film, which comes to theaters after earning over 78 million YouTube views and support from the respected studio A24. Parsons is only 20 years old, which makes his success even more impressive. The way he pulls it off is impossible to overlook. If you don’t know the origin, the Backrooms started with an anonymous photo posted on 4chan in 2019. The picture showed a big, carpeted room with pale yellow walls and buzzing ceiling lights. It was hard to say why, but the image felt unsettling. That uneasy feeling inspired a whole internet mythology, and Parsons built on it with a series of found-footage YouTube shorts that expanded the story. Now, with producers James Wan and Oz Perkins, Parsons has moved into making movies, and the result is much better than anyone might expect. The story takes place in 1990 and follows Clark, played with quiet emotion by Chiwetel Ejiofor. Clark used to be an architect with big dreams. Now, he dresses as a pirate for low-budget TV ads to promote his struggling furniture store, Cap’n Clark’s Ottoman Empire. His wife has kicked him out because of his drinking and lies, so he sleeps in his own store at night. Clark is someone who has lost almost everything and blames others for it. Ejiofor gives the character a sense of dignity, even though Clark himself has little left. Clark goes to therapy with Dr. Mary Kline, played by Norwegian actress Renate Reinsve, who once again shows she’s among the best actors working today. Mary, always calm and professional, has her own hidden pain. In an early flashback, we see young Mary watching her childhood home being torn down, holding onto a piece of the sidewalk for comfort. Clark and Mary are both struggling, and in therapy, they never quite connect—until the Backrooms changes everything. The discovery happens quietly, just like many truly scary moments. Clark checks out a flickering light in the back wall of his store and finds he can walk right through it into a completely different world. On the other side is a maze of endless rooms: yellow walls, industrial carpet, and fluorescent lights that seem to have a life of their own. Furniture from his store looks melted into the floors and ceilings. Staircases go nowhere, and some doors open into walls. The layout makes no sense. Parsons and his team built over 30,000 square feet of Backrooms for the movie, and people reportedly got lost on set. That’s easy to believe after seeing the film. Parsons and screenwriter Will Soodik are smart in how they use the strange space as a reflection of Clark’s inner world. Clark is so overwhelmed that he lives in his own chaos. The Backrooms could be a real place outside our world, or they could be a symbol of grief and self-destruction. Parsons never picks just one answer, and that choice is what makes the film stay with you after it ends. Clark brings his employees, Kat and Bobby, into the mystery. Lukita Maxwell plays Kat, and Finn Bennett plays Bobby. Clark and Bobby explore the Backrooms, while Kat is the only one who voices concern. When Clark disappears, Mary enters the Backrooms herself, and the story shifts to her. Doing this justifies Clark’s unhinged energy in the film at just the right time. Mary’s decision to enter this strange place feels different from Clark’s. He ended up there by accident, but she goes in by choice, which reveals a lot about her character. The film does have some issues. At 110 minutes, some scenes inside the Backrooms go on too long. Since the hallways all look alike, the tension sometimes fades and turns into boredom. The story about a research group called Async, which is teased in a short but interesting scene with Mark Duplass, feels promising but not fully explored. This might alienate people who haven’t seen Parsons’ YouTube videos, making them feel a bit lost. Backrooms achieves a high level of scariness when it is really in its groove, with both sound design being very creepy (e.g., the hum from the fluorescent lights is one of many examples), and Parsons uses jump scares at certain points throughout the film. Throughout much of the film, Parsons saves the jump scares for when they are most effective. Once the movie goes all-in on horror for the final act, it represents a satisfying conclusion for the viewer. People have compared Parsons to directors like Zach Cregger, and that makes sense. Both came to horror with a strong visual style and a focus on building suspense through atmosphere instead of flashy effects. Backrooms isn’t just a first film, it’s a debut that marks the start of an awesome career. Whatever Parsons decides to do next, audiences will follow.
OUR RATING – AN UNSETTLING 7